Havok (software)

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Havok Physics
Havok company logo
Developer: Havok
Latest release: 5.0 / 2007-09-05[1]
OS: Unix, Linux, PS3, PS2, PSP, GameCube, Wii, Mac, Xbox 360, Xbox, Windows,
Website: http://www.havok.com/

Havok Physics, better known as simply Havok, is a middleware physics engine developed by Irish company Havok. It is designed for computer and video games by allowing interaction between objects or other characters in real-time. By using dynamical simulation, Havok allows for more lifelike worlds and animation, such as ragdoll physics. The company has also released a Havok Animation and Havok FX, which uses Shader Model 3.0 on consumer GPUs for effects physics such as smoke.

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Version 1.0 of the Havok SDK was unveiled at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in 2000. It has since evolved into a number of products, mainly Havok version 5 released in September 2007. The source code for the engine is distributed after licensing, and is currently known to work on the Microsoft's Windows, Xbox and Xbox 360, Nintendo's GameCube and Wii, Sony's PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable, Apple's Mac OS X, and on Linux. The engine itself is written in C/C++, and remains fairly portable to any system with a compatible C or C++ compiler.

Since the SDK's launch in 2000, it has been used in over 150 video and computer games. Those games have primarily been in the first-person shooter genre (the physics engine in Valve Corporation's Source engine uses a modified version of Havok), however it has seen some use in other genres, such as in the THQ/Relic Entertainment real-time strategy game, Company of Heroes[2], Ubisoft's Action-adventure game, Assassin's Creed, and Blizzard Entertainment's newly announced StarCraft II.[3] Havok can also be found in Autodesk Media & Entertainment's 3ds max as a bundled plug-in called reactor. A plugin for Autodesk Media & Entertainment's Maya animation software is also available.

Havok's main competitor in the physics acceleration market is AGEIA, the developers of the PhysX SDK and its companion product, the "physics processing unit" (PPU). The PPU is intended to relieve the central processing unit (CPU) of physics simulation tasks, similar to what the graphics processing unit (GPU) does for 3D-graphics and video calculations.

The company was developing a specialized kit called Havok FX that made use of the GPUs in ATI and NVIDIA videocards for physics simulations.[4][5] The product was quietly cancelled after Intel bought Havok.[6]

  1. ^ Havok (2007-09-05). Havok 5 Launches Integrated Character & Physics Solution. Press release. Retrieved on 2007-09-19.
  2. ^ http://www.ag.ru/news/04-01-2005#14483
  3. ^ http://www.starcraft2.com/faq.xml
  4. ^ http://www.havok.com/content/view/187/77/
  5. ^ Shilov, Anton (2005-10-28). Havok Intros Havok FX Engine to Compute Physics Effects on GPUs. Graphics Processors Are Good for Physics Effects – Havok. Xbit Laboratories.
  6. ^ Shilov, Anton (2007-11-19). GPU Physics Dead for Now, Says AMD’s Developer Relations Chief. Nvidia’s Chief Exec Predicts “Negative Synergies” with Intel’s Acquisition of Havok. Xbit Laboratories. Retrieved on 2007-11-26.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havok_%28software%29"
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